Fairbanks Insurance Services Blog

I keep seeing post after post lamenting the shooting in Florida. How our hearts are heavy and burdened. I believe this is an appropriate response. What bothers me though is when issues get politicized. 17 people get gunned down and it turns our country on it’s head. Let me give a different example of how a lot of this uproar is hypocritical. In this country on average 11 people die each and every day (at least half comprises young people) from distracted driving. 4000 people a year, at least half being youth! A lot of those are the very people in uproar over gun violence are the one’s tweeting and posting on social media I’m sure from the comfort of their living rooms. NOT! Where’s the uproar over smart phones? The answer to that question is of course it’s not the phones that are the issue. It’s the idiots holding them. If you say you don’t participate, stats say you are probably lying. From my industry’s perspective, this affects EVERYONE. Even if you’ve never even seen a smart phone. Think on this. Your auto insurance rates (read premium increases) are being driven by distracted driving claims. Fact is, distracted driving claims are approaching claims in frequency and size of drunk driving. In a lot of cases they are worse in size. A drunk still responds albeit delayed. Distracted drivers don’t ever see anything coming. Hence the size of claims and body count. But wait a minute Ron, we’ve passed laws against distracted driving. Yes we did. How’s that working out. My guess is the only people benefiting from this is law enforcement through fines. Drivers pulled over for this are most likely right back on their device posting “OMG! I just got pulled over!” Anyway, until we approach these societal problems without agenda, nothing changes. If we could, we might even get some logical solutions. Maybe